Abstract [en]

This thesis intends to describe and compare how prostitution has been framed in Swedish and Danish newspapers. Since the two countries have similar welfare systems and share a border, yet have different prostitution policies it is interesting to find out whether they view prostitution differently. The theory is based on social constructivism and how the sociology of sex work literature has divided prostitution policies in four different categories, this is then concentrated into an analytical framework which is used to analyze articles of opinion in the newspapers. These articles were then analyzed in order to describe how prostitution has been framed according to the analytical framework. The research findings showed that even though some articles share the same frames, the main theme of the articles in Sweden framed prostitution as a social plague. Whereas Danish newspapers mainly circle around framing prostitution as something that may or may not be good for all parties involved, and thereby either adopting the Swedish model of criminalizing the buyer and not the seller in order to protect the freedom of choice for the prostitutes. The study has also shown that the policy courses taken by Sweden and Denmark are reflected in the definition of prostitution.